A pumpkin that weighs more than 1,700 lbs. was crowned the champion and broke a record at the Roland Pumpkin Fair in Manitoba Saturday.
The 1,725 lbs., or 782 kilograms, pumpkin won after 20 weighed in at this year’s fair in the village of Roland. It was grown by Cornie Banman, who received a $1,500 prize. His pumpkin beat 20 other submissions at this year’s fair, including his wife Helen Banman’s 1,546–lbs. pumpkin, which won silver.
Banman’s champion fruit set the record for the province’s largest recorded grown pumpkin at the fair. To bring the heavyweight champ to Roland, he said a sling and Bobcat helped to lift it onto a pallet, which was then attached to a trailer.
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The planting process began in his garage at the end of April, he recounted. Then, towards the end of the next month, Banman brought the plant, which had a few pumpkins growing on it, outdoors.
“With all the rain and the spring that we had, the plants turned yellow and they had too much water in the beginning, but then, all of a sudden, they took off,” Banman said in an interview with Global News. He added that when a plant has too much water and turns yellow, it can be a setback.
Luckily for Banman, he said, the water dried and the pumpkins recovered. He measured the fruit as they grew, and estimated that at one point, the pumpkins were growing by 40 to 50 lbs. per day.
The pumpkin stayed in his garden until it was ready for showtime late last week, Banman continued.
“I held a Manitoba record already from 2019 until now, and I always said it wasn’t possible to beat that record in Manitoba because of our growing season being so short, but I finally did it,” he said.
The record-setting pumpkin is on display at a grocery store in Winkler, around 20 kilometres north of the RM of Stanley, where it was grown, Banman said. The remaining pumpkins he and his wife grew were donated to a charity event with giant jack-o’-lanterns to raise money for cancer research.
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